My DH is changing his taxes to claim 17 (what the work sheet told him to claim) instead of the 8 he's been claiming the last few years. Our tax return this year was $5104, but we only pay about $100 a month in federal taxes. Most of our return was the child tax credit. So my question is with claiming more, will we be able to get the child tax credit split over 12 months verses getting it next January? DH seems convinced they will, but it doesn't make sense to me. Seems to me the most they would do is have us not pay any federal taxes. Neither of us know a ton about it, so curious if anybody does know.

Am I understanding this correctly? In the past you have had $100 per month withheld from your pay, total $1200-ish withheld over the course of a year, and at tax refund time you get a refund of $5000-ish, more than you paid in, because of the child tax credit.

Adjusting withholdings does NOT mean that you end up getting credits early, you just have less withheld. So if you only have $100 withheld per month, the most your paycheck will go up (per month) is $100.